


Healing

by theoncomingwolf



Category: Alias (Comics), Captain Marvel (Marvel Comics), Marvel 616
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Canon Compliant, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Friendship, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, and maybe a little flirting now and then. what can u do., mentions of both the purple man / killgrave and marcus immortus, the point is really to show her getting better, this shows Jess' depression but doesn't dwell on it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-28
Updated: 2020-06-28
Packaged: 2021-03-04 05:34:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 11,778
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24964555
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theoncomingwolf/pseuds/theoncomingwolf
Summary: Jessica Jones is going through it after her experience with the Purple Man, but luckily Carol is there to help. (Despite Jess' attempts to shove her away.)[The start of Carol and Jessica's friendship, set before Alias continuity, but after the Alias flashbacks.]
Relationships: Carol Danvers & Jessica Jones
Comments: 2
Kudos: 8





	Healing

**Author's Note:**

> I love that Carol is friends with Jessica Jones, as she is someone who has been through very similar experiences but who is now a little later down the line of recovery. It's been touched upon in the comics as something they get about each other, but I wanted to see it explored a little more.
> 
> The timeline of Alias is a bit debatable, but I have decided to interpret it however the hell I'd like. 
> 
> This fic is not intended to dwell too much on the sad parts, just to show how important it is to have people there for you.
> 
> TW: references to comic-canonical mind-control rape, but nothing in detail.

It’s not until a SHIELD representative lets Jessica know that they’ve taken the liberty of securing her an apartment within her previous price range and general location that she even considers her old place wouldn’t be there waiting for her. Of course no-one would hold an apartment for 8 months with no rent payment.

It does sting that her landlord didn’t bother to file a missing person’s report when he officially evicted her and sold all her shit.

The Avengers furnished the apartment, as well as covered the first 6 months of rent, she’s told. She supposes that’s their version of “sorry for attacking you while you were running away in terror”. They could probably afford to have made that a year, if you asked her.

She’s not grateful, just not more upset. None of the few- very few- positives since she has woken up has gotten far enough through the pervasive wall of despair to register as happy, but rather as an avoided disappointment. When you’re caught in a rockslide, you don’t really take a moment beneath the pile of rubble to appreciate the rocks that landed in your vicinity instead of on top of the pile crushing you.

Jessica shuffles wearily into her new apartment- filled with unfamiliar, empty furniture. It’s small, with a two-cushion leather couch, recliner, coffee table, and a TV crammed onto the carpeted area, adjacent to a tiny, open kitchen. The fridge isn’t plugged in, but it doesn’t matter because she has no groceries anyway. She leaves it, idly testing the light switches. There aren’t many.

She’s going to need to invest in some lamps, she thinks, staring blankly at the living room ceiling. It’s a bit off-coloured, with bumpy paint uninterrupted by anything fanciful like light fixtures. The window faces an alley, which provides a bit of sickly red and yellow light, mixing from mismatched bulbs below. 

Her bedroom barely fits a full-sized bed and a dresser, but both seem to be of good quality. They had to stay within what she could afford for when the rent kicked back in, but the furniture is at least expensive. 

She’s glad she took a shower at the hospital before she left, since none of these geniuses thought to buy her any fucking towels. There’s not even a shower curtain. 

The dresser is empty too. Jessica takes off her clothes, stuffing them in her empty drawers, and crawls underneath her blue, plush comforter into soft, smooth sheets in only her panties, quickly falling into a deep, troubled sleep. 

\--

Her first stop, once she’s too hungry to mope in bed any longer, is Target. She gnaws on some chicken wings from a vendor outside the store while blankly pushing a rickety cart down the narrow aisles, running over essential items in her mind. 

She finds a towel, a couple of dollar washcloths, a $3 white shower curtain, and a lamp. She throws some unsexy underwear, white socks, and cheap t-shirts in, staring for a while at their collection of pants. She picks up a few, trying to remember what size her favorite jeans were. They were a bit old, worn in a comfortable way, and they made her ass look cute.

Jessica leans over the cart, sobbing into the rough material clutched in her hands. A mom standing beside her grabs her young son by the shirt and hauls him out of the vicinity of the deranged woman with the big, unbrushed hair. 

Jessica dabs her face with the pants, stuffing them back into their cubby, and twists around, pulling at her waistband to check what size the pair SHIELD bought her were. They’re just a little too big, so she goes one size down, grabbing the first pair of jeans that size she sees, throwing them on top of her shower curtain without trying them on. 

That’s enough shopping for now.

She pays for her goods with her debit card, which she’s relieved to see still works fine after being retrieved from evidence holding. Fortunately, there were no deductions from her bank savings in the months she was gone. While she used to be proud of the humble amount she had saved up, with no job and no belongings it seems like nothing at all. 

\--

  
  


Jessica stews at home for the first week, sitting in her anger. She wants to let it out somehow, but she’s never really had a good outlet. She tries punching the kitchen doorframe, but her superstrength means she is denied any satisfying sting in her knuckles, and now she’s got a broken doorframe. Another appealing option is getting very drunk, but then she’d have to leave the apartment to buy alcohol. 

Jess pulls her tired gaze away from the commercial on TV and thinks of a much better self-destructive action.

She calls her mom.

At the hospital, the woman had claimed to not realize she was missing at all, merely assuming that Jessica hadn’t wanted to speak to her. 

The excuse sounded almost apologetic at first, until Jessica had not been immediately forgiving. Then, all of the sudden, it was her fault for being the type of person to believably drop all contact for months on end, and if she were a little less moody people may have realized she was gone.

Now, her mother answers a little meekly, asking how her new place is, talking about her own bookclub, avoiding the uncomfortable subject of her daughter’s recent trauma entirely. It would almost be nice, a distraction like this, if Jessica wasn’t burning up from the inside. So instead, she picks a fight, raises her voice, and eventually slams the phone down into the receiver. 

Her eyes are fixed on the TV, but nothing registers.

It wasn’t just her mom who didn’t notice.

Jessica picks up the phone again, thinks of those she considered friends months ago, and dials. 

\-- 

Jess has never been much of a drinker, so it takes her a while to get through her first glass of wine. The second goes easier, and the third even better, and soon she’s feeling more relaxed than she has in a while. 

Not happy, but detached in a way she doesn’t hate. 

None of her friends have shown up, none have tried to call her back. They’re all too afraid to face her anger again, Jessica reckons, after the unexpected phonecalls each of them received the other night.

What, she thinks, was she supposed to be polite in telling them they abandoned her for months? Supposed to sugarcoat her unnoticed kidnapping so they wouldn’t feel bad? They’d just come over and play UNO and she’d forget all about the Purple Man and the isolation?

Glass four.

\--

It’s a few weeks, almost a month, before Jessica gets her first visitor, a firm knock on her door in the evening. 

She reasons immediately that it’s probably just her new landlord or a salesman or a neighbor that she hasn’t had a chance to scowl at yet, but she hates the little flutter in her chest at the idea one of her friends may be here to beg for her forgiveness.

Jessica presses her cheek to the cool wood of the door, squinting through the peephole. A blonde woman is standing at her doorstep, arms full of two paper bags and a couple bottles of drinks. 

_Neighbor?_ Jess wonders.

She opens the door. 

The woman is tall, with broad shoulders and a pretty face. She seems familiar. 

“Hey,” she greets, “have you eaten? Do you like Chinese?”

“Uh...” Jess squints, eyes flicking to the takeout in her arms; the bottles unfortunately seem to be two kinds of soda, not booze. “Have we met?”

“Yes.”

Jess leans against the doorframe, breathing in the appetizing scent wafting from the woman’s arms, but makes no move to invite her in.

“Come on,” she insists, pushing past Jess into the apartment, “food sometimes spills in these bags and I don’t want to ruin my jacket.”

Jess tries pushing back, but to her surprise, stumbles instead, unable to break the woman’s stride.

“Hey,” Jess slams the door shut behind her, “who are you and what the fuck are you doing here?”

“I’m Carol,” the woman says, unpacking different takeout containers, “I’m here to eat dinner.”

“Do we know each other?” Jess repeats, storming into the kitchen.

The woman does not flinch back, just leans easily against the counter, long legs sliding slightly forward so Jess is standing between her feet. Jess’ eyes dart across the woman’s body, to her chest, then hips, then legs, before snapping back up to her face. She’s had too much to drink on an empty stomach.

Maybe she can make this woman leave _and_ keep her food. 

“We do,” Carol holds her hand out, smiling widely. “Ms Marvel.”

Ms Marvel.

Jess blinks, eyes once again traveling to take in as many details as she can.

She’s tall, like the Avenger, with wide shoulders and thick legs that imply she’s hiding quite a bit of muscle under her jacket and jeans. She’s older than Jess would have expected Ms Marvel to be, in her 40s at least, but she supposes age doesn’t matter if you’ve got super powers like she does.

Jess takes Carol’s proffered hand, squeezing tight. She takes the firm grip easily, returning the strength.

Yeah. Alright. Ms Marvel.

Carol pushes off the counter, slipping around her and opening cabinets.

Jessica has been a huge fan of Ms Marvel for years.

It was one of the highlights of her short-lived superhero career when the woman showed up to help Jewel- Jess- fight a bad guy, joking around with her and staying to chat even though she was an Avenger and Jess was just some C-Lister. 

A few months later, Jess brought her camera to an Avengers press conference. Ms Marvel recognized her and came over to say hi, which had really touched Jess at the time. She posed with her for one photo and even wrangled a few Avengers over and took a couple more of Jewel with them. 

For a good while after that, Ms Marvel had disappeared from public eye, and they didn’t meet again until over a year later, when Jess attacked the Scarlet Witch in a purple haze. The rest of the Avengers clearly didn’t remember her from their photo-op, but Ms Marvel did, swooping in and pulling Jess’ ass out of the fire.

“You don’t have any dishes,” Carol says, appalled, “or cups.”

“Nope.”

Carol turns, looks as if she’s going to say something for a moment, but shakes her head instead, picking up two pairs of chopsticks and two takeout containers.

The coffee table is too close to the couch to neatly squeeze between, but Carol manages, dropping sideways into the cushions and setting the food and her feet on the table in front of her.

Jessica stares at the splintering wood of her kitchen doorframe, damaged from a swing she took at it in anger a couple of weeks prior. 

“Listen, Ms Marvel-”  
  


“Carol.”

Jess swallows, mouth feeling dry, “...Why are you telling me your real name?”

“It’s not really a secret from the Avengers,” she says, somewhat tersely, “and I know yours- Jess, right? It’s only fair.”

“Did someone send you to check up on me?” Jess asks, scowling. 

To see the empty cabinets and the chipped doorframe and the half-empty bottle of whiskey sitting on the coffee table and judge.

“No,” Carol says, “I was just worried about you.”

“I don’t need your pity.” Jess snaps, “If you wanted to help me, you had an eight fucking month window.”

Carol pauses, mid-bite. Tentatively, she seems to decide biting the noodles hanging out of her mouth in half is a less awkward way to break the silence than loudly slurping. 

Her eyes flick to the bottle of Jack sitting beside her feet. Jess has no cups, so she’d clearly been drinking it straight out of the bottle. 

Jess refuses to feel embarrassed, so instead casts a steely look in Carol’s direction. It would work better if the woman would look up from her lo mein. 

“I really wish I had.” Carol says, at last, and takes another bite of her food, winding up the next collection of noodles so tightly that they all fit in her mouth at once. 

“That was really more of an invitation to leave.” Jess says.

“I heard it,” Carol tells her.

She takes another bite.

Jess wonders if throwing this woman through her window would make her feel any better.

She slips in the narrow space in front of the TV instead, grabbing the bottle of whiskey and dropping into the reclining chair. Jess takes a slow sip, hoping to make Carol uncomfortable enough with her drunk, unshowered self that she’ll just go on her own. It’s worked with the people in her life so far.

She holds it to her lips longer than she actually drinks from it, not actually able to stand more than a little bit of the stuff in her mouth at once.

Carol gives her a funny sort of look, staring a little too hard. It kind of makes Jess uncomfortable, instead. She puts the bottle back down.

Carol takes another large bite of her noodles, facing towards the blank TV once more. 

“Fought a dude in a thong yesterday,” she says at last, breaking the silence.

Jess doesn’t respond.

“It was shiny and gold,” Carol continues, “Honestly, he had a great ass. Chiseled.”

She tells Jess about the fight, clearly trying to be a little funny, and doesn’t visibly act discouraged as Jess pointedly ignores everything she’s saying.

Eventually, Jess gives in to her hunger, picking up the container of fried rice and taking a bite. It’s pretty good.

Carol starts another story.

\---

Jess lays in bed, thinking about buying dishes.

She wants her favorite mug back, a large ceramic patterned with flowers. She wants her favorite shirts, too, and her photos, and her books.

She lays in bed, crying about her belongings so she doesn’t have to think about all the other things she’s been crying about.

She forgets about buying dishes.

\--

Ms Marvel returns three days after her first visit.

Again, she’s in her civilian clothes, this time with a pizza in one hand and a plastic bag in the other.

“If I told you to fuck off would you even listen?”

“Why, you got someone cute in here?” Carol asks, winking, “Other than yourself, of course.”

She doesn’t really think that Ms Marvel is hitting on her, but she has seen her chiseled arms. It wouldn’t shock her to learn the woman was into chicks. Jess could come around, too, with a couple drinks and someone this hot. 

Still, she has still not showered since she saw Carol last, and she hadn’t showered for a few days before then either, so she can’t imagine she actually looks anything resembling cute.

“Just me.” Jess says, rolling her eyes, “Just come inside before my neighbors get the wrong idea and think it’s okay to come to my door.”

Carol sits on the couch, immediately pulling two glasses from her bag.

“You still got that soda?”

\--

When Carol leaves, Jess takes a shower.

She cleans her new two glasses and plates with hand soap, places them in her empty cabinets, and goes to bed. 

\--

Jessica perks up at the sound of footsteps in the hall.

She shakes her head, angry with herself when they continue past her door.

  
The woman’s a fucking Avenger. She’s just making pity visits, it’s not gonna last anyway. 

\--

“Hey Jess,” Carol greets, setting two boxes of food on the counter, “please tell me you like Star Wars.”

Jessica leans against the shut door, glaring. 

“What is your goal here?”

“I brought it,” she explains, pulling a video from her bag, “so it would kinda suck if you hated it.”

“Not with the fucking movie,” Jess says, angrily, “with coming here and bothering me like this.”

Carol’s face is serious, like it usually is, even when she’s playing nice.

“I came to bother you so we could watch Star Wars.”

“How long are you going to keep coming here?” Jess snarls, “I’m not gonna get magically better just because you bring me food a few times.”

“No,” Carol says softly, “you won’t.”

“...Yeah. So you may as well just leave.”

Carol’s hand twitches, half-raising the movie once more seemingly thinking better of making another joke about it. She doesn’t say anything, just takes one of the boxes- tacos, this time- and heads to her spot on Jess’ couch. 

Jess steps forward menacingly, receiving a sharp look from Carol in response that freezes her in her tracks. 

Carol sits.

“What do you want?” Jess repeats, desperate.

“I just...” Carol swallows, looking out the window at the nothing outside, “It’s important that you have people to support you right now.”

Jessica scoffs.

“No-one wants to _support me_ ,” she says, “they just want me to get over it. You don’t even know me. Trust me, this shit gets old fast.”

Carol raises her eyebrows, making a face that does not look entirely sympathetic, then takes a bite of her taco. 

“Are people trying to tell you to get over it?”

Jess sits, with her own tacos. They’re simple, just beef and cheese and lettuce.

“My mom.”

“Mm,” Carol hums, taking a bite, “...it’s probably just hard for her to think about.”

“Hard for _her_?”

“What about friends?”

“I don’t have any fucking friends.” Jessica grumbles, throat tight.

Carol looks at her solemnly.

“You have one.”

“Oh fuck off we’ve hung out twice.”

Carol laughs at this, taking another bite of her food.

Jessica hates how pleasant she finds the sound.

“They didn’t even notice I was missing,” she admits.

Carol nods, silently, eyes a little glassy. 

Jess feels the sting of tears burning her throat. She bites them back, refusing to cry in front of this woman.

“...and I don’t even have a goddamn VCR.”

“I came prepared.”

Carol pulls a whole-ass VHS player out of her satchel. Jess stares, bewildered, then nods. Carol begins hooking it up to the TV.

“Want a glass?” Jess offers, holding up her bottle of Jack Daniels.

Carol makes a little sound, like the start of a sentence, then shakes her head. Jess can’t see her face, while she fiddles with the wires. 

“I’m good.”

\--

The next time Jess leaves the apartment, for food and drinks, she makes another stop at Target. She buys bowls, plates, cups, silverware, and even a pot and pan. She gets a second towel and a few more washcloths, some pajamas, shorts, and a couple more simple shirts.

Carol doesn’t comment on her stocked cabinets the next time she is over, just silently pulls two bowls down and serves their takeout. 

\--

In Jessica’s dreams, she can’t move. She tries to lift her head, but it won’t cooperate, tries to open her eyes long enough to focus on what’s in front of her, but they roll back into her skull instead. 

Nothing is physically holding her down, but she feels the weight in her limbs, like a magnetic pull into the center of the earth.

Sometimes her mother stands over her, barking at her to get off the ground and be a person. Sometimes her friends walk past, oblivious to her suffering, even as she begs them to help her. Sometimes she manages to stand, to step forward, but when the Vision, Iron Man, Thor come to attack her, she has no energy left to move.

Sometimes she gets up just fine. Suddenly movement is easy, clear, until she catches a flash of purple out of the side of her eye, and realizes this will is not her own. 

\--

Her mom stops by, the only visitor other than Carol to come see her. She tuts at the full trash, the bottles and napkins scattered around her apartment, the clothes on her floor and dresser, and even her unmade bed.

She tears into Jessica as she picks up after her, telling her she has to get her life together. She can’t live in this mess and drink and yell at anybody that comes by. She’s got to get a job and a life and hobbies before this kills her. 

Jessica thinks of what Carol said- how this is hard on her mom, and gets angry.

Why does no one care how hard it is on her? She can hardly go a minute without remembering what happened, about how she was taken and used and manipulated, about how she was abandoned by everyone she thought cared about her, about how the people sworn to protect her from harm attacked her instead of the man making her life hell for 8 months.

She sinks into her anger, embraces and uses it, because if she’s not angry she’s just sad. And she refuses to cry any more than she already does, especially in front of anyone else.

Jessica throws her mom out, slamming one of the glass bottles hard into the doorframe as she paces back and forth from the kitchen to the door. It adds another chip to wood, but the bottle shatters satisfyingly, cleaving in two and dropping shards all over the tops of her bare feet, leaving her holding the jagged neck. Jessica lets go, shaking her feet off and stepping carefully over to the couch, where she lands hard. She’s drained from her fit and the whiskey and the sleep she didn’t get last night, and sinks heavily into the cushions, closing her eyes and drifting off. 

She wakes some hours later to Carol’s familiar knock.

Jessica groans, wiping the drool from her cheek with the back of her palm. She wipes her sleeve across the cushion too, but as both the couch and her jacket are leather, it sort of just smears grossly.

Jessica shoves the coffee table, tipping it over when her calves won’t fit between it and the couch. It lands with a heavy thunk against the cabinet the TV sits on. The remote clatters loudly into the wall, and another empty bottle of Jack bounces off the carpet, unbroken, startlingly loud like the clattering from a shampoo bottle knocked into the tub. 

“Jessica?” Carol calls, worried, hitting the door several times with her palm.

Jess kicks the table for good measure as she passes. It hurts her toes a little.

Carol looks worried, hands full, as always, of takeout food. 

“You okay?” she asks, peering around Jess into the apartment; she spots the broken glass on the floor, as well as the coffee table.

Jess places a hand on her shoulder, shoving her backwards so she’ll stop looking.

“Hey!” Carol glares at her, lifting two hands in a ‘back off’ motion, plastic bags hanging from her thumbs.

Jess alternates between the decision to yell at her or simply state that she’s not in the mood today, but opts to let Carol choose her own path here, squaring her shoulders and stepping far enough through the door that she’s completely blocking entry.

“What?” Carol asks, brows furrowed.

“Go away.”

“You don’t have to be a dick about it,” she scoffs, dropping her hands.

“How else am I supposed to tell you?” Jessica asks, raising her voice a little too loudly for this small hallway, “I never even know you’re coming, you just show up!”

“I don’t have your phone number,” Carol says simply, shrugging.

That’s a lie, Jessica thinks. It’s not like she gave Carol her address either.

Carol sighs, staring at her feet. After a moment, she lifts the two bags towards Jess.

“Fine. If you really want I’ll leave, but take these. And I want my soup.”

Jessica rolls her eyes, snapping the takeout from Carol’s hands and spinning around to set them inside. She kicks the door closed in Carol’s face as she turns, smirking at the scandalized yelp she receives in response. 

That is, until Carol throws the door back open. She should have locked it, too.

“Back out!” Jessica says, dropping the food a bit too hard onto the counter.

“No,” Carol says, striding forward, stepping neatly over the larger chunks of glass without looking.

Jessica thrusts a soup in her direction, brown broth in a plastic container.

“That one’s yours,” Carol grumbles.

She lays everything out, holding up a plastic bowl with a clear lid, containing chicken, white noodles, onions, and little green crap Jessica usually picks out of her food. In her other hand she lifts a similar container of broth to the one Jessica tried to hand her, only slightly lighter.

“I like the chicken one,” she says, nabbing a pair of chopsticks and two small containers of sauce, one red and one a very dark brown, “I got you steak.”

Jessica eyes the other bowl warily. It’s got noodles and onions as well, with a wrapped package of what looks to be thinly sliced raw meat.

“Is this shit cooked?”

“It cooks in the broth,” Carol explains, mopily. 

Jessica almost feels bad, with Carol’s mouth pursed the way it is, clutching her food to her chest but not moving, as if hoping she’ll be allowed to stay anyway.

“Well, off you go.”

“Fine...” Carol frowns, stepping over the bottle on her way out of the kitchen. 

Jessica opens the door for her, cooled a bit but too prideful to invite this woman back in after telling her to fuck off. 

“Oh, should I get your number?” Carol asks, from the hall, turning back with sad eyes.

“Oh just come in and eat your fucking soup,” Jessica says, rolling her eyes, “for God’s sakes.”

Carol smiles, taking the invitation without pause.

Jessica shakes her head, closing and locking the door behind her. Why on earth this woman is in any way excited to spend time with her, she has no idea. 

Carol rights the coffee table without comment, setting her feet on it like always, but leaving a little room between it and the couch so there’s no passage in front of the TV. 

Jessica collects her soup, stepping directly onto the table to get to her recliner. Carol sets her food down after she passes, placing her feet on the floor for a moment to pour half her broth into the bowl.

“What is this?” Jess asks.

“Pho. It’s Vietnamese soup.” Carol explains, “Really good. The red sauce is spicy and the brown one is sweet. I think it’s made of Oysters.” 

“...I’ll pass.”

“Suit yourself. Broth’s fuckin great though, you’ll love it. Especially with the rice noodles.”

She mixes the red sauce in with her noodles and pours the brown over her chicken, which she eats first, before adding more broth and starting on the noodles.

Jessica pours her broth in, testing it with her pinky to make sure it still seems hot enough to cook her meat like Carol says, and tentatively adds a bit of beef. It cooks nicely, thin enough to quickly brown. It’s all pretty good, actually. 

She eats her food, never taking her eyes off of her friend. For a little bit, she feels neither angry or sad. Her belly is full and warm, Carol’s chatter distracting.

Eventually, the sun falls and Jessica’s mood goes right with it.

This time, it’s not harsh, biting words, but a bone deep tired she usually feels when she’s alone. 

“My mom came by today.”

“Mm...” Carol twists, propping her feet up on the couch so she’s facing Jess.

Jess doesn’t elaborate, just stares at the cracked whiskey bottle next to the recliner and considers getting up for another.

“You guys fight?”

“Yeah,” Jess says, spitting Carol’s words back at her, “I guess this is hard for _her_.” 

Carol nods.

“Fuck her,” Jessica says, “you too. That’s bullshit. You know who it’s hard for? Me.”

“Of course.” Carol says.

“Well she can fucking get over it then!” Jessica says, “Telling me to pick up my shit isn’t going to stop me from thinking about _him_ every fucking day. And you coming here and telling me to think about what she’s going through isn’t going to help either.”

“I’m not.” Carol says, “I’m here for you, not her.”

“You said it first! You said it was hard for her. A few weeks ago.”

“Oh,” Carol says, running her fingers into her hair, “sorry, I didn’t mean you had to do anything about it. I mean, it is hard for her. She’s not helping you very well, but I think she does care.”

“Fuck off.”

Carol shrugs.

“She came here and told me to get a job. That doesn’t seem like she cares.”

More silence. Jessica stands to get a glass of whiskey. She’s stopped drinking it straight from the bottle in front of Carol, not really wanting to get institutionalized. 

“I think it helps to assume best intentions but I know that can be... difficult.” Carol sighs, heavily.

“Fuck off,” Jessica repeats, slamming her first glass and pouring a second one, higher.

Carol gives her that look again, eyebrows raised unsympathetically, admonishing her for her rude behavior. 

“Oh shut up you’re doing it too,” Jessica mutters, sitting, “everyone thinks they know best for me. I mean, I know I sure as fuck don’t, but you don’t either, so shut up.”

“ _They_ don’t get it,” Carol agrees, softly, “but I do.”

“Do you?” Jess asks, glaring. 

“Yeah.”

“Why?” Jess asks, befuddled, mad again.

How dare her mom tell her what’s best for her, how dare Carol try and pretend she could even imagine what it’s like for Jess.

Carol shakes her head, slowly sliding into the couch until her legs hang over the head, eyes fixed on the ceiling.

“I _do_ know,” Carol says, “When I heard about what happened I couldn’t stop thinking about you. That’s why I’ve been coming by.”

Jessica’s heart thuds in her chest, eager to tell Carol she doesn’t need her pity, but unable to speak until she has more context, desperate to know what part of Jessica’s hell Carol thinks she can empathize with.

Carol doesn’t continue, trying to catch Jessica’s eye. 

Jessica frowns at her, tapping the whiskey bottle at her foot. If they’re not going to actually talk about it, the least they can do is drink together in silence, like adults.

“No thanks,” Carol says slowly, “I’m an alcoholic... it’s hereditary. My dad was too.”

“Hereditary huh?” Jess says, taking a sip, “Guess I’m good then, neither of my folks were.”

Carol laughs. Jessica likes that about her- she’s generally sort of serious and stoic, but she laughs at all the wrong moments.

“I’m not going to tell you to stop, anyway,” Carol scoffs, “I know better. The problem isn’t really the drinking, it’s whatever’s making you drink. I could never get the Avengers to see that.”

“They knew?”

“Yeah, they canned me,” Carol says, voice neutral, “told me to come back when I had my shit together.”

“Harsh,” Jessica scoffs.

“They knew about all the stuff leading up to it, too... none of them even brought it up.”

Jessica still isn’t sure Carol does get it, not without knowing what her personal issues were, but this is the closest thing she’s had to real understanding in a while, so she decides to take it for a moment; she can be mad about it later if she decides Carol’s reasons for drinking were unfair to compare to her own horrible experience.

“Why’d you go back?”

“I’ve given up a lot in my life to succeed,” Carol says, “they weren’t going to take being a fucking Avenger from me just because they refused to empathize. Besides, if I thought they didn’t care, if I left there would be no-one who did.”

Jessica thinks about how lucky it was that Carol _was_ back on the team. If she hadn’t been there when the Purple Man ordered her to kill an Avenger, who knows what would have happened.

“What led up to it?” Jessica asks, without tact.

“Oh, uh,” Carol stares at the wall, speaking quickly, “...a supervillain killed a friend of mine, I got kidnapped by an interdimensional rapist, and then when I got back and tried to settle down and forget about everything, a teenager tried to kill me and fucked with my powers and memories...... Bad year.”

“...No fuckin’ kidding.”

You know, Jessica thinks, no more of this superhero shit for her.

Carol tells her about Marcus, who violated her body and mind in his desire for a strong wife and a ticket into the Avengers. He took her and controlled her, then unbelievably flaunted her in front of her team, who missed all the red flags of her explicit discomfort and strange behavior. Not only did they trivialize her feelings, making jokes about her confusion, they _helped her to leave_ with the bastard, ultimately deciding he was too untrustworthy to stay, but not so much that he couldn’t take Carol along with him when he left.

Jessica’s mouth is hanging open by this point of her story, and all the anger she had felt at Carol earlier drains, pooling in her stomach and hardening.

She remained trapped with him for another month until his death, which Carol skims over in her hasty and undetailed telling. Jess hopes it was really horrible for him.

“I tried a quiet life in San Francisco for a bit,” Carol says, “fell back on my old writing career. Then there was the aforementioned powers and memories thing... lost both, got most memories back and more powers than before,” she waves her hand, “it’s not really important. I found good friends though, in Spider-Woman and the X-Men.”

Jess doesn’t know either, but she met Jean Grey in the hospital. She seemed nice.

“That was when I held it together the best. Leaving them was the biggest mistake I made in trying to get my life back in order.” Carol looks Jessica in the eyes, “We need people, to heal.”

Jessica scoffs. 

“We do.”

“People suck.”

“We even need those people,” Carol says, “the Avengers don’t really get it, even still, but I can’t be mad at them forever. That got me nowhere.”

“Forgive and forget? That’s your big lesson?” Jessica scowls.

“No, no,” Carol shakes her head, “we can never forget. Not that we shouldn’t... we just won’t.”

Jessica frowns. Now that she _would_ like to do.

“And there are some people that don’t deserve forgiveness, either,” Carol says, “Marcus doesn’t, he can burn in hell. I’ll never forgive my father, either, or Mystique... but all the others, the people who didn’t help quite enough, who messed up when they were needed... sometimes for our own sanity I think we need to move on.”

“Like the Avengers?” Jess asks, rolling her eyes.

“Yeah,” Carol says, “they’re good people, usually. Your mom too, I think. It’ll hurt you both more to never speak again than to accept that she can’t possibly understand what you’re going through and that’s why she’s going to act very stupid.”

Jessica drains the rest of her whiskey, shaking her head.

“You deal with your shit your way Carol, I’ve got mine.”

Carol frowns, but doesn’t fight her on it.

“I don’t think I can forgive the girl who took my memories either,” she says, “but the X-Men have decided to give her another chance. That’s why I left them.”

“Traitors,” Jessica mutters.

“I think it’s the right thing to do, honestly; she’s just a kid,” Carol sighs, “But I’m still not ready to get over it right now. When I first got back, I never wanted to see the Avengers again after what they did. Only the Scarlet Witch even properly apologized, and they just kept messing up their chance to make things right with me-”

“You’re really selling this ‘forgiveness’ crap.”

“I know,” Carol sighs, “but at some point I just wanted things to be normal more than I wanted to be angry. It felt like betraying myself at first, but I think it was necessary. It’s okay if you never get there, but if you do... don’t beat yourself up over it.”

“I’m just gonna hate the Avengers for you,” Jessica decides.

Carol laughs, tears running down her cheeks. Jessica stares at her empty glass, again giving her the privacy to wipe them away.

“...Thanks.”

“Can you hate my mom for me?” Jess asks, “No more of this shit where you try to show me her perspective?”

“...Okay,” Carol says softly, “that’s fair. I’ll only say bad things about her from here on.”

“Thank you,” Jess says, “and I’ll talk shit about the Avengers for you.”

“Your mom needs to get her head out of her ass and show you genuine support instead of acting like everything is normal and you’re acting out for no reason,” Carol offers.

“I think the Avenger’s is a fuckin’ boys club and it’s not a surprise they’re a bunch of fucking idiots.”

“You’re telling me,” Carol rolls her eyes, “I used to be in the Air Force. Any job with power over others like that needs way more women than it has now.”

“You were in the Air Force?”

“Major Carol Danvers,” Carol says, saluting cheekily from her supine position on the couch, “at your service.”

“What the fuck?” Jessica squints, “Major’s like, high up, right?”

“Pretty high, yeah.”

“Damn... Carol Danvers... why’s that name sound so damn familiar?”

“Hm... I ran _Woman Magazine_? New York Times bestselling author?” Carol says, “Probably one of those.”

“...Wha- Who the fuck are you??”

Carol smirks.

“Major Carol Danvers, at your service.”

\--

Carol sleeps on her couch overnight. 

When Jess wakes up, the glass has been swept up from the floor. How, she isn’t sure, since she certainly doesn’t own a broom, but she doesn’t ask. 

They have breakfast together, with fancy coffees from a stupid overpriced restaurant down the road. Jessica hates places like this, but she doesn’t hate the company, nor the fact that Carol’s paying. 

Soon after they leave, walking aimlessly down the busy streets, Carol receives an Avengers alert. Paranoid as it is, Jess loves the undeniable confirmation that this woman claiming to be Ms Marvel is truly who she says she is, changing into the familiar lightning-bolt costume down an alley. She gives a stiff Jess a quick hug goodbye and takes off into the sky.

Jess stuffs her hands in her pockets, leaving the alley as subtly as she can, and heads for the nearest bookstore.

She’s not sure what kind of books Carol has written, so she starts in Adult Fiction, skimming the last names.

Cu.. Cz.... Da... Danvers.

There’s a couple copies of the same little red softcover, bearing her friend’s name and the title, _Lightning Waits_.

Jess grins, unconsciously. 

She checks the copyright date, trying to suss out whether the lightning is a secret reference to her superhero identity, or the reason that she chose her costume. As far as Jess can remember, it seems the book came out just before Carol’s black costume.

She flips the book over to the back, checking for a summary.

_Donna has always yearned for adventure, but when the opportunity to be a hero strikes one stormy night, she finds herself in over her head._

Jessica laughs, delighted. She cannot wait to read this book and tease Carol about it later. She’s going to take note of anything that the average reader, not knowing the author was Ms Marvel herself, might miss.

She takes the book to the front counter, where a small, butch woman in a jean jacket is waiting to check her out.

“Great choice,” she greets.

“My friend recommended the author.”

“Yeah, I would too!” the woman smiles, brushing her short black hair away from her forehead; Jess is antisocial enough to regret starting this conversation, but somewhat curious to hear an outside perspective, “She used to run _Woman_ _Magazine_ \- there was a lot of challenging, progressive content in there. It shows in the writing, too- strong female characters, gay characters...”

Jess smiles, politely.

“Pretty cool,” she agrees.

“Yeah for sure,” the woman says, swiping Jess’ card, “you read her nonfiction? There’s a great in-depth look at her personal experiences in the Air Force and at NASA. Really controversial, ‘cause she didn’t shy away from talking about discrimination and other problems within the military...”

Jess raises her eyebrows, curious.

“You got that one too?”

The woman nods, going around the counter and leading Jess over the nonfiction section. She plucks a blue and white book off the shelf. On the back is Carol’s familiar, smiling face, dressed in a decorated uniform.

“Huh,” Jess says, “she write anything else?”

“Uh, yeah!” the woman nods, “But we don’t stock them. There’s a couple of lesbian characters in the book you bought and mentions to anti-LGBT+ laws in that one there so...”

Jessica glances to the huge pride flag on the wall, then back to her jolly little lesbian saleswoman. 

“Ah. This is a gay bookstore.”

“Yes ma’am,” the woman answers, smiling now a little nervously.

“Cool,” Jess holds up the second book, “I’ll take this one too.”

\--

A small gleam stands out against the edge of the carpet, disappearing as Jess closes the front door behind her, taking the hall light with it. She bends down to collect the shard of glass, rolling it over in her palm a few times before dropping it into the trashcan in the kitchen.

Jess drops the books in her other hand onto the counter and takes a few minutes to clean up the crap littered around the apartment, throwing away napkins, bottles, and other little pieces of trash. The garbage can is overflowing by the time she’s done, but she manages to shake the bag a little while fastening it so it all crams inside.

There’s a little girl at the end of the hall as she approaches, trying to pull open the door to the stairwell. She’s probably about six or so- Jess isn’t really all that good with kids’ ages, so she may be quite off- with big poofy pigtails, fastened with sparkly bands. 

“Woah, woah, what’cha doin’ there kid?” Jess asks, as she approaches, holding the bag as far away from herself as she possibly can.

The girl spins around, leaning against the door instead. 

“Nothing... ma’am.”

“Going somewhere?”

She shakes her head.

Jess keeps an eye out of her in her peripherals as she pries open the garbage hatch and stuffs her full bag inside. It rumbles down the chute.

“I wouldn’t lean against that door if I were you,” Jessica says, “someone could open it that’s coming up the stairs and hit you.”

The girl frowns, lip wobbling a little, but steps to the side.

She looks around, then whispers to Jess, “Have you seen a blue bear?”

Jess shakes her head. The girl looks crestfallen.

“Mm, lose it?” Jess asks.

She points to the stairwell door. Jess sighs, gesturing for her to stay in the hall, but leans in to the railing, keeping the door propped open with her foot.

“Comin up the stairs?” Jess asks.

“No... I dropped it.”

“Going downstairs?”

“I dropped it,” she insists, popping in beside Jess despite the order to not follow; she holds her hand over the space between the winding staircases, miming a dropping moment.

“On purpose,” Jess sighs, “just now?”

“This morning...”

“Why?”

“My sister was being a jerk.”

“Ah. It’s your sister’s bear.”

The little girl nods, grimacing, as tears begin to fall from her eyes.

Jeez.

Jessica shoos her back into the hall. She crouches to the girl’s level, asking her for any more details she can tell her about dropping the bear, but unsurprisingly she has none.

“Okay, you need to go back home and stop trying to go in there alone, okay? It’s not safe.”

She nods, sniffling heavily as she cries, and pulls up her shirt from her cute purple overalls to wipe at her whole face. Jessica pats her shoulder, lightly putting just enough pressure behind her back to prompt her to walk. She watches as the girl approaches a door, wiping her feet on the mat before going inside.

Jess turns to go home but stops, staring at the door to the stairwell for a long moment.

Fuck. 

Well, what else does she have going on?

She throws the door open, quickly jogging down to the first floor. It sounded like the bear was simply dropped straight down, not thrown under the railing of another set of stairs. The floor at the bottom is a little muddy, but dry, leading to an external door that you can key in and out of. Jess uses it to leave the apartment a lot and to enter about half the time.

There’s no blue fluff or anything, no conveniently bear-shaped mark on the ground. She’s not sure what she expects to find. It’s unlikely anyone would take it to track down its original owner, and she can’t imagine anyone would just pick up a random bear to give to their kids.

Light floods into the narrow room as the external door pops open to reveal a somewhat attractive young man wrangling a toddler in one hand and an excitable leashed puppy in the other. The father smiles politely at her and looks away, but the boy and the dog keep staring, seemingly curious about whatever she’s looking at, crouched as she is.

An adult would not pick a random bear off the muddy ground. 

A kid or a dog, however....

Once they did, Jessica thinks, it would probably be no time at all until the parent took it and chucked it. She steps outside, looking around on the ground and in the tiny trashcan primarily for throwing away dog shit and extinguishing cigarettes. No bear. 

If not leaving, then entering. Jess heads back inside, jogging up the stairs until she’s back on her floor. It’s nowhere on the stairwell, so unless they dropped it onto the hall on one of the floors she passed on her way up then... she opens the door, walking back into her original hallway and eyeing the trash chute warily. 

Too gross to bring home, too embarrassing to admit your dog had its slobbery mouth all over or be caught chucking it back down the stairs... if someone entered any floor with it on this side of the building, it’d go down the same chute, right here.

She considers abandoning this quest entirely, but sighs instead. One last try. 

Jessica is still debating whether she can use some social engineering or flirting to get down to the basement- where the trash chutes lead in a variety of outlets- when the handle turns easily, unlocked. No-one’s down here, which is unsurprising, since it’s primarily a gross, smelly room filled with garbage receptacles. 

She counted her turns very carefully as she made her way to this room. If she tracked right... Jess walks over to one of the large dumpsters, picking out her recent disposal, a black bag crammed completely full, with a bottle neck protruding from the top. Bingo.

She pulls a couple trashbags out, setting them on the floor. 

A spot of blue fur peeks out from under a crushed cardboard box.

Jess tips into the bin in a far reach. Thankfully enough, it is the stupid bear. She didn’t do that shit for nothing. Jessica grabs the gross, dirty stuffed animal and rocks back onto her feet, turning heel.

She’s kind of great at this, Jess thinks proudly. She’s always been pretty good at deductive reasoning. If only it paid the bills.

The bear’s gonna need a wash. It seems new enough that Jess doesn’t think she’ll ruin it by throwing it in some water... and she needs to do her laundry anyway. Worst case if she ruins it, she just won’t give it back and they’ll think they lost the bear. Which they did.

It’s the first laundry she’s done in weeks, leaning against the cold metal of another machine in her jeans (commando, so she can wash all her underwear), bra, and buttoned leather jacket, reading Carol’s book. She throws the bear, her clothes, and her towels in altogether, not bothering to split them by type or color or temperature or whatever bullshit. 

She’s still excited to make fun of her friend for writing a heroine action novel with a title about lighting, but honestly the book’s not bad, with a good writing style and a plot that is sincerely gripping for a while until each time she remembers that it was Carol who wrote it. 

Jessica watches the dryer, slowly turning over and over. Tony Stark can invent metal robots and shit, and holograms, and whatever the fuck but he can’t invent a goddamn clothes washing process that doesn’t take hours? She wonders if she can get Carol to take a note to him, since Iron Man’s his bodyguard. 

Eventually it dings; Jess throws the pile into her laundry bag, slings it over her shoulder, and heads back upstairs to her apartment. She unlocks the door to throw her laundry right inside and relocks it, key in hand, knocking on her neighbor’s door.

A woman around her own age, late 20s or early 30s, answers. She’s got a patterned scarf wrapped neatly around her head, tied in a stylish knot in front. Her eyes light up instantly at the sight of the bear in Jess’ hand.

“Oh!” She says, excited as Jess hands the stuffed animal to her.

A little girl, just older than the one she saw earlier, comes tearing into view, slamming into her mother’s hips with grabby hands. Her mom holds it above the girl’s grasp, placing a gentle hand on her head so she looks at Jessica.

“I found it in the laundry room,” Jessica says.

The little girl in the purple overalls pops in on her mom’s other side, mouth open as she stares at Jess.

“Looks like someone washed it for you baby,” the woman muses, eyebrows raised as she squeezes it between her fingers, “it’s still a little wet.”

Jessica shrugs, shifting her feet.

“Thank you so much,” the woman says, “how did you know it was ours?”

“Oh uh,” Jessica points, feeling a little bad about ratting the kid out but wanting to make sure she’s not wandering by herself, “she was out in the hall looking for it earlier.”

  
The mother turns, admonishing her child for leaving the apartment without permission. 

Jess shifts her feet, signaling her departure. She holds a hand up in goodbye to Purple Overalls and nods at Bear Girl as she manages to pull the animal from her mom’s fingers.

“What do you say?”

“Thank you ma’am,” the little girl chimes. Purple Overalls nods along silently against her mom’s leg. 

Jessica gives the pair a couple thumbs up, then turns to leave. 

“I’m Sarah, by the way,” the mother says, leaning against the frame to watch Jess unlock her door, evidently not _too_ put off by her quick exit.

“Jess,” she nods, walking inside and closing the door without another glance.

\--

_“Donna falters as the bullet tears through the muscle in her calf, sending her careening into the gravel. The adrenaline pumping through her veins clouds any feelings of pain, but she soon becomes dimly aware that the blood splattered around her is her own.”_

“Yeah yeah,” Carol shrugs off her criticism, unruffled, “if I were embarrassed to have written a book I wouldn’t have published it.”

Jessica wishes to god there was a sex scene in here so she could rib Carol about it, but no such luck. She flips to the closest thing she can find, where their heroine marvels over the muscled, smooth physique of a man with deep brown eyes and a warm smile. She reads the description out loud to Carol, putting on a sultry voice as she describes his large, strong hands and gentle grip.

Carol takes a long drink from her soda, propping her feet up. Hiding her face. Jess thinks she’s got her.

“He runs his hands- callous, but somehow soft- down her thigh, wrapping strong digits around her thigh and pulling her up against him. As his fingers caress her ass-”

“Woah, now I did not write any of that.” 

Jess snorts, continuing to bullshit, “His large package presses into her leg as she jumps off the ground, longing to be held in his beautiful arms.”

“You’re looking for a job right?” Carol laughs, “I’d stay out of writing.”

“This shit’s great, you kiddin’?”

“Ah, I’m sorry my book wasn’t horny enough for you.”

“Not nearly horny enough,” Jess says, “I’m glad you’re taking my constructive criticism.”

“I’m juggling a few others right now,” Carol says, “I’ll think about putting a sex scene into one of them for you.”

“You also have to put in more lesbians or I can’t buy it,” Jess tells her, gesturing with a thumb to the window behind her head, “my closest source of literature is a gay bookstore.”

“Got it. Lesbian sex scene,” Carol winks at her.

“Yeah,” Jess says, “shouldn’t be too hard. The only other person you describe as salaciously as Mr. smooth-chest here is that woman in the combat boots.”

“She’s based off an old friend,” Carol says, smiling wryly, “she just happened to be really hot.”

“Uh huh.”

“So... writer’s out. What other kinds of jobs are you looking for?”

“No.”

“Come on. What did you do b- What was your last job?”

“Eh, data warehousing. It’s like high-paying admin shit.”

“Cheers to high-paying.”

“Not _that_ high paying Major Editor.”

“Hey I worked my ass off for those. Major, at least,” Carol defends, “plus I’m a fair bit older than you. I had time to get to high-paying.”

Jess scoffs.

“Older is right,” she says, “can I guess your age?”

Carol grimaces, shrugging. She shakes off the lapse in stoic coolness and flexes an inarguably impressive bicep.

“Think I’m doin’ alright.”

“What else you writing?” Jess asks, hoping to permanently distract Carol from the subject of her current unemployment.

It works.

Carol tells her about a kids’ chapter book about a space monster and an adult fiction book involving a cool murder mystery, complete with accurate, gory details from her many horrifying real-life experiences of seeing murder victims.

Jess thinks her decision to mark ‘superhero’ off the job list was a good one.

\--

PERSONAL SUITES AND FAMILY APARTMENTS FOR RENTAL  
CLOSE TO PUBLIC TRANSIT

3439 West 39th St, New York City, New York

Jessica’s eyes drift away from the job postings she’s skimming to fix on the small housing ad in the corner of the page. She recognizes that address.

It’s her old place. Her old apartment building where she lived with her old belongings where the landlord evicted her without filing a missing-persons and then sold all her shit. All her important belongings just gone. And the unimportant ones. She was mad about the loss of her little purple t-shirt that made her tits look great too.

Most of her childhood photos of her birth parents and her little brother are at her mom’s place- her adoptive mom’s- but she’d brought some with her when she moved out. All of the pictures of Jessica as an adult, with friends and exes, were probably thrown out as well.

There was a stupid little blanket, pink, childish, with her birth name- Jessica Campbell- lovingly stitched along the hem by her first mom. She’d quietly pulled it out of storage one Christmas, when she got a little sad and nostalgic for the days before the car crash, slipping it into a pocket in her suitcase and bringing it back to her apartment with her. Now she really wishes she’d left it there.

Jessica has low hopes for anything like photos, which were almost certainly chucked, nor for anything shitty but sentimental to her, but she wonders if she can’t track down some of her favorite clothes by shaking her ex-landlord a bit. 

Jess throws on her leather coat, liking the way it makes her look just a little bit bigger than she is. She can’t be as tall as Carol, and like hell she’s wasting time working out as much as that chick has, but she can make a bit of an impression if she’s angry enough, with her wild eyes and wild hair and big sleeves that hide her skinny, unimpressive arms. If that doesn’t work, she’ll just bring Carol. The woman really is built like an Amazonian.

Jessica takes a cab to her old address, even though she can technically fly. She was getting a bit better at flying when everything went down, but she’s never been very good at it, and the thought of doing so now makes her feel a little bit ill. 

Her ex-landlord does not remember her, not in the slightest, and he doesn’t even try to look like he feels guilty when she tells him off for not reporting to anyone that she had disappeared from her apartment long enough for her to evict her, but as she gets angrier and closer, he starts to look a little nervous. He slips his hands under his desk, rolling his chair even closer than he already was in his cramped office.

Jessica’s eyes flick down to where he is almost certainly reaching for a gun. He meets her gaze shakily, sweat dripping down his forehead. 

“Oh come on I’m not gonna fucking kill you,” Jess rolls her eyes, “just tell me where you sold my fucking stuff.”

“I- I usually sell to a place called Lucky Goods, on 8th and 16th,” he says, arms still reaching out of view, “happy?”

“No.” Jessica says, scowling.

“Look, I got a lotta units,” he says, “it’s not my fault you stopped paying rent.”

Jessica punches his desk so hard a large piece of wood flakes off, dropping onto the floor.

He jumps back, panicked, pulling the shotgun from under his desk.

He doesn’t account for the size of the weapon compared to the size of his shitty, shitty office, and the butt of the shotgun hits the edge of the windowsill, preventing him from lifting it out and up at her as fast as he intends.

The delay gives Jessica time to leap on top of his desk, using one hand to hold his arm firmly down and take him by the scruff of the loose-fitting, wrinkled shirt with the other. She wants to squeeze it so hard that it bends, like they do in the movies, but she’s a bit afraid that it’ll cause it to fire and blow his toes off and she’ll get arrested.

Fortunately, she doesn’t have to do anything so intimidating and cool, as the whole situation seems to be enough for this quaking man. Jessica pulls the gun from his loose fingers, twisting her body and swinging him up and over the desk. He slides across it, knocking papers and stupid paperweights onto the floor before tumbling over the edge and into the doorframe.

Jess sets the shotgun on the chair and steps over the man, now curled in a ball on his gross carpet. 

Now that was a bit cathartic, Jess thinks. 

The consignment store reminds her quite a bit of her great-aunt’s house. She’s long-dead now, but lived well into her 90s and absolutely loved collecting useless shit. Her first mom had said it was rude to compare her to hoarders, as the main problem was just that she lived in a shitty little apartment in New York City. If she had lived in one of those mini-mansions you see on TV, she could stuff all the crap she owned in a couple of closets and no-one would be the wiser. 

This establishment similarly suffers from being in New York. As Jess steps over a tricycle on the floor, slides in-between two shelves, she first thinks how this place isn’t very wheel-chair friendly, then thinks how it’s not very big-person friendly either. She’s met Thor. He’d have a hard time with his freakishly wide shoulders.

There’s an old man at the counter, in an upright green recliner bearing a bright red price-tag. He’s got thin white hair that’s not been brushed- who is she to judge, neither has hers- and thick round glasses. On his hands, he has a tight pair of leather gloves, like some sort of cartoon character.

“Hey,” Jess says, “I’m looking for some of my stuff that was sold to you here?”

“We don’t accept any stolen items,” the man recites, smiling fakely, “have a good day.”

Yeah right. And she’s a virgin. Correct answers, if certain people ask; not true.

“It wasn’t stolen,” she begrudgingly admits, though it certainly feels like it was, “my landlord evicted me and sold all my shit. Weasely guy, smells like an ashtray? Very little eyebrow?”

“I meet a lot of people,” the man says.

Jess stares him down for a second, then roots around in her bag, pulling out a book. 

“Will you cooperate if I threw in a _signed copy_ of _Lightning Waits,_ by Carol Danvers _herself_?”

Carol signed it for her as a joke. Jess was going to drop it back off with that girl at the bookstore who seemed to be a fan. 

“Little lady, I have no idea who that is.”

“Yeah, me either,” Jess puts the book away. Your lucky day, little bookstore lesbian.

“All items are on display, unless you are looking for something more expensive. Luxury items are sold immediately to a middle party and not kept here, for safety.”

“Yeah, no, I was broke as shit,” Jess assures him, “my stuff will be with the rest of your garbage.”

Jess eyes the crammed space warily.

“Any sort of organization system...?”

“Nope!” he says, smiling widely.

She starts with their very, very limited clothes selection. It’s mostly weird items like superhero costumes and not anything she would have lost. All her clothing must have been dropped off at a clothing-specific store. There’s no way she’s seeing her favorite jeans again.

The hopelessness sets in pretty quickly after that. Things are actually a bit grouped, although the order does seem to have no rhyme or reason. Jess shoves a pile of round wall-clocks to the side to get a better look at some novelty salt shakers, lifts a box of cat ornaments to see if she wants any of the plates underneath. After a while she’s just shopping, genuinely interested in the wide and crazy selection available. She hopes she doesn’t have her aunt’s hoarding gene.

It’s in one of the weirdest collections in the store that Jess actually finds something belonging to her.

She’s digging through the pile entirely to scoff at it, a collection of picture frames which still contain the original recipients. Some may actually make sense to sell, containing celebrities, such as the framed picture of Eddie Murphy with a little boy. She tries not to think too hard about why the little boy or his family didn’t still want their photo. Maybe they’re still alive but got tired of Ed. Another pic shows a young couple kissing on a beach; it’s not really artsy enough to buy unless you knew them personally.

Then there’s her.

Jess, smiling widely at the camera, dressed in her ridiculous white and blue Jewel costume. Carol, masked, stands beside her. She’s not really smiling because Carol doesn’t really smile much, but it was a picture Jess had loved and savored once. 

She digs through the pictures, finds another of her, with the Avengers. It’s a really, really shitty photo. Comically bad. Jessica is captured well, but the Avengers are all cut off. Thor and Iron Man are headless and the Vision is barely even in the picture, just a yellow shoulder.

Jessica cackles a little, a real genuine laugh. Carol and her goddamn awful picture-taking skills.

She was a bit annoyed when she’d first got them back. She thought Ms Marvel was cool, but how could she mess up this bad? Jess was never going to have another chance to meet the Avengers, she’d thought, and all she had to show were a couple of shitty photos. 

The other had been slightly better, getting at least most of Thor’s head in frame but still largely cutting out the robot. She’d framed all three regardless, placing them on her wall proudly.

She can’t find that one now, but she slides the two under her arm and continues to dig around the store for a while before going up to the front.

“I’ll, uh, take these two.”

The man adjusts his thick glasses, peering at the photo in his hands, back up to Jess, back down, back up, back-

“It’s me, okay,” she says.

“What are you wearing?”

“Yeah, it sucks.”

The man shakes his head, examining the next picture, “With the Avengers, dear? Are you a superhero?”

“No.”

“You’re sure dressed like a superhero.”

“Maybe I just wanted to show off my figure.”

“It’s a nice one!” the man chuckles, handing her both her items back and listing a reasonable-enough price, “although you’re hiding it now.”

Jess rolls her shoulders, adjusting the heavy coat on her back.

“I remember when I was sold these,” the man continues, slowly, “a kid bought the third photo a little while back... the Avengers were a little more in frame.”

Yeah.

He places two hands on the counter, pushing off of it to stand, shakily, and crosses around to the shelves.

“It came with some other things, if I recall... most are probably gone, now, we have a pretty fast rotation, but...” 

  
The man sticks his arm into one portion of the clutter, pulls out her old alarm clock, patterned with little spiderwebs. She liked Spider-Man, alright? She still does. At least the dude hasn’t clocked her, which she can’t say for all the superheroes she used to look up to.

“Thanks,” Jessica says flatly, a bit disappointed that it wasn’t anything better.

“And, Ms... Jessica Campbell?”

Jessica’s head snaps up at the use of her given name.

Her blanket.

Her little, stupid pink blanket.

She snatches it out of the man’s hands, almost dropping her clock in the process. It’s soft, just like she remembers, with her mother’s stitching perfectly intact. It doesn’t smell quite right, but it hadn’t smelled like anything she cared about in years, just lightly of laundry detergent, which she can fix. 

“Divorced, huh?” the man says, ambling back behind the counter, “Me too.”

“I’m not divorced?”

“Your credit card says your name is Jessica Jones?” he tilts his head at her, shutting on eye and holding the card up to her as she hands it to him again, “Are you not Ms Cambell?”

“Oh. Yeah, I am.”

Her adoptive mother had insisted on Jessica taking her last name, so they’d be a ‘real family’. 

“Married then?” he assumes next, “You should get yourself a ring.”

“I’ll look into it.”

\--

Carol is on TV.

It’s breaking news, a live taping of Ms Marvel facing down a monster-man with freakish proportions and extreme strength threatening to rip Jersey City to shreds. She floats 6 feet above the ground in the next shot, fists glowing, a gash on her forehead streaming blood all down her face. 

Jess sticks another potato chip in her mouth, pink blanket laid across her lap.

\--

“Hey what are these!” 

Carol sets down the grocery bags she brought with her, picking up the picture of Jewel and Ms Marvel where it’s been loosely propped against the wall. The other photo lies flat, having succumbed to the slick plastic surface of her kitchen counters.

“Found it at a pawn, or thrift, or whatever store,” Jess shrugs, “remember how my landlord sold all my stuff?”

“I do. You get a lot back?”

“No. Just that.”

“Bummer...” she flips it around, showing Jess, “Good pic though, we look cute...”

Jess looks at Jewel’s wide smile, frowns a little. 

“And what the hell is with this one?” Carol laughs, picking up the photo with Jewel and the Avengers, running her fingers along the edge, where the taller Avengers’ heads are cut clean out of frame and only the Vision’s shoulder is visible. The only one other than Jess that’s fully in the picture is the Wasp, but she’s the size of a mouse, so that shouldn’t have been too hard.

“You’re with that one, Carol!” Jess says, mock indignant, “You took the damn thing. God you suck. I guess they never made you take pictures at that newspaper you worked for.”

Carol laughs, clutching the picture to her chest. She peeks at it again and laughs harder.

“Were you tipsy when you took that one?” Jess accuses, but she’s smiling. 

“Ah, no,” Carol says, a little more seriously, “not yet.”

Jess feels the slight shift in mood from the joke, tries to recover.

“Well, it pissed me off when I first got it back,” Jess says, “but I prefer it now, it’s kinda funny. Like when my ex dumped me and I cut the tops and sides of photos off where I looked cute.”

Carol gives her another smile, but Jessica thinks this one’s just for her benefit. She tries to not let it bother her, as Carol is a sort of stoic person usually. 

Jess’ eyes wander up to Carol’s forehead, noting that the gash she saw on the TV the other day is already healed. She wishes _she_ had _that_ power. She may even trade it for flying. 

She purses her lips, holding up a back of cards, “Wanna play UNO while we eat?”

“Sure,” Carol says, then, “You like cooking?” 

“No.”

“Do you know how to make anything?”

Jess raises an eyebrow at her friend, listing off some easy meals, like spaghetti and oven chicken. She’s not a teenager. Or a dude. She can cook some stuff.

“OK cool,” Carol says, pulling ingredients out of her grocery bags and lining them along the counter, “today we’re making sausage and peppers. It’s seriously good.”

Jess sits on the counter, picking up the photo of Jewel and Ms Marvel- her own smile so wide it hurt her cheeks (hasn’t had one of those in a very long time) and her mysterious, famous role model, standing coolly beside her (now just, Carol, slicing vegetables in her kitchen)- and ponders how wholly unexpected life can be.

She drops back onto the floor, leaving the picture face down, and helps Carol cook.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!
> 
> If you have a moment to comment, it would really mean a lot. I put a lot of hard work into this even though I know comics-verse doesn't get as many reads, unfortunately especially for women-centric fic.


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